Why would someone want to remove ABS? Because for a true high performance car actually used in extreme situations, ABS is usually going to slow you down or in the worst case, have no effective brakes at all.

And, one more way to reduce weight, especailly weight that is hanging out well past the axle centerline of the car where it's negative effects can be compounded.

This is not something I would recommend for most people, overall you are probably better off having your ABS intact.

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BUT, we are building an all out autocross, track day, time trial, etc, tC and have had issues with the ABS negatively reacting to the brake upgrades we have done.

I also did some serious research, part of which was talking to two individuals with numerous national championships under their belts for autocross in very fast classes. Once I explained the mods done, performance goals, my experience behind the wheel. they both said remove it!!

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Many hours later, three different and more costly each time flair tools, tweaking and tuning, success!!!

The brakes are far better with more linear bite and feedback and I can no longer trip up the ABS and have a complete loss of bracking force.

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In all honestly, this was a pain in the butt but worked out superbly in the end and my autocross times today proved it. Maybe tomorrow I will post some times, to tired right now.
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Now I have one more idiot light in the dash to fix and no speedo reading at all, more fun to figure out!!

Rick

 

I'm running in to the same problem with the ABS "icing over". So far under most conditions, if I can just put a lot of leg in it and push through the ABS pulsing it works ok, but sometimes it's like there is a brick under the brake pedal.

I pretty sure one of the things that is causing it in my case is sticky tires. They are r-compound and when they take a set in the turn the inside rear wheel lifts a few inches off the ground and confuses the ABS. Once the ABS see that wheel acting really different that the other wheels it goes into panic mode untill all four are back on the ground again. In a straight line the ABS acts normally and hauls the car down pretty good.

What did you end up doing to fix the problem? Did you disable the ABS or find a way to make work better for autox?

 

I posted a question before about how to keep the ABS from activating all the time, under normal driving conditions. So you are basically saying that all your brake upgrades did nothing in terms of the pesky ABS or that it did nothing interms of ABS and autoX? I am just looking for some sort of upgarde that can keep the car from thinking im losing control as I am slowing down for a redlight. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Completely removed it, requires a fair amount of replumbing and adding a porportioning vale to adjust the rear bias. Now I have to figure out how to get the speedo to work again, may be fairly easy and I do not expect it to be to tough.

I am not even on R compound tires yet(though 212 Hankooks in 235/40/17 are very aggressive street tires) and I can bomb the brakes and slow down incredibly fast withought lockup. I have to practially stomp on the pedal to induce and at all, that means I am getting alot of grip from the tires. I can now brake much later(threshold braking, late, hard, just under lockup, lighten up on the pressure as speed decreases to keep from lockup, carry maximum speed deep into the corner) and not have the car upset by some computer fiddling with the brakes while I am trying to negotiate a good entry and exit point and speed.

On the tC you cannot just pull the fuse to disable ABS(that I know of, a bit of speculation here) since the ABS is also the rear bias aduster, you could end up with no or too much rear brake. I would test it out in a safe place but did not do so on our car, no time to do so.

Rick

 

My solution for now is trying to get all of my braking done in a straight line.

For the future I've got a hotchkis front sway and TRD rear sway in the works. I'm hoping that the front sway will help keep the rear tire down more often and keep the ABS happy.

By the way my event went really well yesterday. We finish 1st and 2nd in HS out of 6 and we finished 1st and 3rd overall PAX out of 145 drivers. I think this car might be a lot more competitve in HS than most people thought is would be. I've still got a few more tricks up my sleeve (legal tricks) just in case I start to run across some better compitition.

How did your event go? Did you treat it as a test & tune?

 

I have never liked ABS, for the most part I have seen it as a bandaid for lack of driving skills and at times it just fails to operate properly. Of course over the years it has gotten much better but I keep hearing stories of running stop signs, etc, when hitting bumps the system can go into some sort of overload mode, no brakes, not good.


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I upgraded to a Wilwood BBK and the larger pistons allowed so much more fluid flow that repeated on and off of the brakes for tight transistions would totally overload the system and cause a total loss of braking force with no time to even lift and reapply the brakes to try and get something back, too late, blew by the gates!

I would hate to have that happen coming down some mountain pass(there are alot of incredible little ones around here) that is a bit rough find my brakes gone and I am flying through the air or slamming into the bank, a tree, etc.

I switched to smaller piston calipers which really fimed up the brake pedal but never autocrossed on them or did any hard core runs in the mountains, just drove it around a bit then tore the tranny out to install the LSD, flywheel, clutch, etc, car was apart for months doing many other mods as well, one of which was ABS removal, now I never had to fear it failling;)

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For those that want to keep thier ABS, which most probably should, here is something you can try but test it in a safe place.

1)remove the ABS fuse, jumper in a switch(fused is a good idea).

2) find a bit lot, etc, get up to decent speed, jump on the brakes and see if the rears are workig or not, you may have to do a quick turn in to see how the car reacts. Looking for lockup, front or rear, etc, if you cannot get the rears to lock, etc, they may not be functioning, if so, do not run with the ABS disabled.

If it works ok, you can switch it off whenever you wish

Rick